Uneven Development in Western Guatemala

Abstract

In Latin America, analysts have noted patterns of uneven development within individual third world countries, independent of their peripheral or semiperipheral condition. There are numerous explanations for this phenomenon. Economic internal colonialism describes situations in which capital reaches only certain layers of the bureaucracy or socioeconomic sectors which, in turn, exploit human and other resources in the area without generating or redistributing development. Urban primacy, so common to many third world countries, is another contributing factor. Urban primacy implies unequal access to transportation and infrastructure networks and to sources of supply and demand. In areas where populations are mainly connected to the national and international markets through peasant rural markets, whether they are periodic or permanent, primacy promotes differential access to resources including labor and outlets for production. In western Guatemala, both perspectives can explain uneven regional development. Soon after contact, when Spaniards identified sites as those where they would establish themselves (thereby forcing the development of certain areas over others), they set in motion a pattern of uneven development that was further reinforced during the colonial and independent years. Prior to that time, however, local populations were not uniformly endowed and developed. Highly differentiated societies benefited from access to more or less fertile lands and resources, and larger or smaller regions in the coast. Ecological, cultural, and historical processes generated the contemporary situation in the region. To explain variability in development, we need to consider not only these factors, including the position of the region with respect to shifts and trends in the capitalist system, but also the local responses and initiatives taken by the native populations to economic decline (Cook and Binford 1990:29). In areas of limited land resources, like the Guatemalan western highlands, regional variation in economic depression has been explained as a function of a region's distance to the core area of the marketing system. The closer an area is to the central regional marketing system, the more developed the communities are said to be, and the less dependent they are on seasonal work outside the communities. The greater the distance of the community from the core area, the poorer and more dependent on seasonal work they are (Smith 1977). Although this explains, in part, uneven regional development, there also exists variation in economic conditions between townships located within the most developed core areas of the marketing system of western Guatemala (e.g., in the departments of Quetzaltenango and Totonicapan). At present, there are no adequate theoretical formulations to account for such between-town differentiation within the core. Why are some communities doing better than others, even with comparable access to the markets and comparable resources (i.e., scarce but reasonably fertile land)? What places some rural inhabitants in an advantageous position relative to others? In other words, what explains economic differentiation within core areas? Here we compare two neighboring villages in western Guatemala, Zunil and Almolonga, and point to similarities and differences between them. We use a model of economic differentiation to explain within-township differences (Goldin 1993) as a basis for understanding some of the dynamics that underlie between-village differences. Our comparison of the townships on economic and cultural variables raises issues about the benefits and limits of the production of nontraditional crops and their commercialization and it provides insights into the process of change in peasant societies. Within a few miles of each other, the two towns' differing historical paths and present economic attitudes are a commentary on the need for a combination of regional and community studies to explain social and economic developments. …